Tag: Crisis

The major streets in the Kaduna metropolis and its environs were deserted on Monday as security operatives enforced the 24-hour-curfew imposed on the state by the government.

From Sabon-Tasha, in the southern part of the state, to Kawo in the northern part, the streets were devoid of the usual vehicular and human traffics.

But in spite of the curfew there were still silent killings in some parts of the state like Narayi in the Kaduna South Local Government Area where it was learnt that men in military fatigue invaded the area and killed three persons.

The deceased were buried on Monday by their relatives at the Narayi cemetery, according to an eyewitness.

Several gunshots were heard between 12:00am and the early hours of 5:00am in the Narayi area.

An eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “I’m at the Narayi cementry where relatives are burying three persons killed last night.

“Eyewitnesses are saying soldiers killed them. There is a mammoth crowd at the burial ground. Security operatives are nowhere here, the tension is building up.”

A correspondent of the Leadership newspaper in the state, Mr Isaiah Benjamin, resident in area, sent messages to journalists to warn them of the prevailing situation in the state.

His text reads, “Important notice: I wish to appeal to colleagues to be cautious of their movements today (Monday). In spite of the curfew, silent killings are still being reported. Three persons were killed in Narayi over the night.”

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The White House condemned on Monday an upsurge in violence in Myanmar that has sent 300,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh, saying it was “deeply troubled” by attacks on both sides.

“The United States is deeply troubled by the ongoing crisis in Burma,” said Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, condemning attacks on Burmese military positions and subsequent spasm of deadly ethnically tinged violence.

“At least 300,000 people have fled their homes in the wake of attacks on (a) Burmese security post on August 25,” without directly accusing the Burmese military of carrying out a crackdown.

We “reiterate our condemnation of those attacks and ensuing violence.”

The Trump White House had been facing questions about its silence in the face of a crisis that a UN envoy has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

One person died on Monday while four others sustained injuries during a violent clash between Hausa and Igbo traders at Kuje, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory.

There were conflicting accounts of the crisis, but one had it that the crisis erupted after a Hausa youth was arrested by a vigilance group for breaking into a shop owned by an Igbo man.

The suspect, whose name could not be immediately ascertained was said to have died after he was beaten up.

A civil defence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity explained that the suspect died at the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital where he was taken to for medical attention.

He said, “But when the Igbo trader attempted to open his shop to take stock of what was there, some Hausa traders prevented him from doing so and in the course of the argument, the issue got out of hand and became a free for all.

“Policemen including other security forces were deployed to restore peace; they had to fire tear gas canisters to end the violence which was almost assuming a terrifying dimension; in the course of the violence, four people were injured and they have been taken to the hospital.”

Another account, however, said the clash was between two rival vigilance groups identified as Green House and Kungiyar Zama lafiya.

One Sani Adamu reportedly died during the fracas.

The FCT Police spokesman, Usen Omorodion, confirmed the incident in an SMS, but he had yet to respond to a request for details of the clash as of the time of filing this story.

Nigeria’s economic slump sharpened in the third quarter as rebels bombed oil pipelines in the restive south and businesses struggled to access foreign exchange, official data showed Monday.

The third quarterly contraction in a row comes as the West African nation reels from a crash in global oil prices, which have collapsed from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to currently around half that.

A recession appeared inevitable when militants renewed attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure early this year, strangling production that accounts for around 70 percent of government revenue and the bulk of Nigeria’s export earnings.

The relentless sabotage has put the Nigerian government under pressure as economists increasingly question whether President Muhammadu Buhari can pull the country out of recession.

“The nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by -2.24 percent year-on-year in real terms,” the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said in a report.

This meant that third-quarter growth in Africa’s most populous country was 0.18 percentage points weaker than that recorded in the second quarter, and 5.1 points down from third quarter growth in 2015.

“During the period under review, oil production averaged at 1.63 million barrels per day (bpd),” the statistics agency said.

That is a 22-percent drop from the same period in 2015, when Nigeria was producing 2.17 million bpd.

“Not only do the attacks have an instant impact on output, and cause major damage to infrastructure, but continued unrest will only further discourage international oil companies from investing in oil projects,” Rhidoy Rashid, oil analyst at Energy Aspects, said in a recent note.

“There seems to be no quick fix for uniting a heavily divided region, so for now we expect further attacks and subsequent volatility in Nigerian crude output.”

– Naira nightmare –

Manufacturing has also taken a big hit, shrinking by 2.9 percent in the third quarter in the wake of a devalued naira and currency controls that have curbed trade.

“This is partly due to the continued fall in the exchange rate, which makes imported inputs more expensive, thereby increasing business costs,” the statistics agency said.

“This is greatly a result of the continued fall in (the) naira to dollar rate which translates to much higher cost of business operations.”

Buhari had vowed not to “kill the naira” by letting it fall in value, in opposition to depreciations by fellow major oil exporters Angola and Russia.

His government tried to prop up the naira for months, but that drained foreign currency reserves and it eventually abandoned the currency peg in June.

But a dollar shortage still persists, with black market rates hovering around 440 naira to the dollar this month, compared to the official bank rate of approximately 320 naira to the dollar.

The economic troubles look to last, with peace talks between the Nigerian government and oil rebels falling apart this month — the Niger Delta Avengers claimed they bombed three pipelines last week — and foreign investors steering clear until they see a more coherent economic policy.

“Actual reforms will be required in order to drive it – and so far, these have been elusive.”

Economists cautioned that it was too early to say if the worst of the crisis had passed.

“With oil output likely to fall yet again in the fourth quarter, it is too early to call the bottom of Nigeria’s economic downturn,” John Ashbourne, Africa economist at research firm Capital Economics, said in a note.

“The bigger picture is that today’s figures suggest that the downtown continued into the third quarter unabated,” Ashbourne added.

“Despite government efforts to boost domestic production, the contraction of the manufacturing sector worsened,” he said, adding “erratic policymaking continues to pose a key risk to the economy”.

Nigeria overtook South Africa to become the continent’s largest economy in 2014 after revising its GDP statistics, yet it faces severe infrastructure challenges and suffers from chronic power shortages, poor roads and high unemployment.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast the West African nation’s gross domestic product will shrink by 1.7 percent this year, the first full-year contraction in more than two decades, according to Bloomberg News.

“Due to the delicate regional developments and the need to face the dangers of security challenges, it became necessary to go back to the people… to elect their representatives… and contribute to confronting those challenges,” he said in a decree.

The move came less than 24 hours after parliament speaker Marzouk al-Ghanem called for snap elections in the face of mounting security and economic challenges.

Ghanem’s remarks came after lawmakers filed three requests to grill ministers over a decision to hike petrol prices and over alleged financial and administrative violations, in a clear sign of tensions between the government and parliament.

The emir’s decree was issued at the recommendation of the government which held an emergency meeting earlier Sunday to discuss the standoff with MPs.

No date was set for the fresh polls but early elections must be held within two months of the dissolution of the house under the Kuwaiti constitution.

The letter read, “It has come to the notice of the ASUU-UI branch that promotion arrears will only be paid for one year henceforth as stated on two occasions by the university bursar during our meetings with the management of the school. Our union wishes to state unequivocally that this position/decision is totally unacceptable to us as a union and it is inimical to the welfare of our people and against any logic we can think of.

“Our position and decision against this proposed policy is informed by the following consideration: Those whose promotions were announced early enough have already been paid the full benefits of their arrears. How then can two people promoted the same year be treated differently on payment of arrears? Promotion arrears are not a privilege but earned salary of individuals, which must be fully paid. If the university administration goes ahead with this policy, the industrial harmony existing in the university cannot be guaranteed.”

The union said that its preoccupation was the protection of the welfare of its members and that ‘nothing would be left undone’ in discharging the stated responsibility, adding that, already, it had notified the national body of the union.

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The nation’s power generation fell by over 1,000 megawatts as four power plants were down on Saturday, bringing the total number of plants not generating electricity at the moment to 10.

The nation recorded a total system collapse on Friday, September 16, 2016, the 17th time this year, industry data obtained by our correspondent on Sunday showed.

The total power generation stood at 2,555.7MW as of 6am on Saturday, down from 3,596.2MW the previous day, worsening the outage being experienced by households and businesses across the country.

Electricity from the nation’s biggest power station, Egbin, located in Lagos, hit a record low of 246MW on Saturday from 425MW on Friday, while output from the Shiroro Power Station in Niger State, one of the nation’s hydropower plants, hit a high of 600MW.

The plants that were shut down after the collapse included Olorunsogo I and Olorunsogo II in Ogun State; Omotosho II in Ondo State; and Ihovbor located in Edo State, with installed capacities of 294MW, 500MW, 500MW and 225MW respectively.

Olorunsogo II and Omotosho II, which were built under the National Integrated Power Project, had on Friday generated 171MW and 83.5MW, while Olorunsogo I and Ihovbor produced 148.1MW and 165.6MW, respectively.

The units GT1 and 3 of Olorunsogo II were said to be untied after the system collapse of September 16; while GT2 and ST2 were out due to gas constraints; GT4 out due to water leakage on the generator cooler; and ST1 out on maintenance.

Omotosho II’s units GT2, GT3 and GT4 were said to be out due to gas constraints, while the GT1 was not yet tied after the system collapse.

Five of Omotosho I’s units, namely GT1, 3, 5, 7 and 8, were not yet tied after the system collapse; GT2 and 4 out due to gas constraints, and GT6 out on vibration trouble.

Ihovbor’s units GT1 and 3 were not yet tied after the system collapse; GT2 shut down due to oil leakage from the auxiliary compartment, and GT4 out due to unit transformer problem.

The system collapse also affected the Jebba Hydro Power Station as two of its units, 2G4 and 5, were said to be still untied as of Saturday, with its output falling to 277MW from 408MW on Friday.

Units GT2, 5, 7 and 8 of Omotosho I and GT2 of Alaoji II in Abia State are also not yet tied.

Other plants that did not generate any megawatts of electricity on Saturday were Sapele I, Afam IV&V, Afam VI, AES, ASCO and Rivers IPP.

The national grid has recorded 22 collapses this year – 17 total and five partial.

The country generates most of its electricity from gas-fired plants, while output from hydropower plants makes up about 30 per cent of total generation.

In what was a big blow to electricity generation in the country, Shell’s Forcados export terminal was hit mid-February, forcing the oil major to declare force majeure on the export of the crude oil grade.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had recently said, “The nation has lost over 1,500MW of power supply to the damage as gas supply from Forcados, which is Nigeria’s major artery, accounts for 40 to 50 per cent of gas production.”

The Transmission Company of Nigeria on February 2, 2016 announced that the nation had achieved its peak generation of 5,074.70MW.

But the feat was short-lived as generation dropped below the 4,000MW mark later that month, plunging to a record low of 1,400MW on May 17, according to the TCN.

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It said the country had been deeply divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines.

It painted a gloomy picture of the country’s economy, noting that most of the development and social indices in the country were below acceptable standards.

The report, which was read during a consultative meeting on the formulation of the UN Development Assistance Framework IV for the South-East zone, in Awka, Anambra State, observed that for decades, different segments of Nigeria’s population had, at different times, expressed feelings of marginalisation.

The report read, “Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and the seventh most populous in the world. Her population will be approximately 200 million by 2019 and over 400 million by 2050, becoming one of the top five populous countries in the world.

“Nigeria is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world, with over 80 million or 64 per cent of her population living below poverty line.”

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